Free Access To World-class Biological Databases For European Science Thanks To F

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Free Access To World-class Biological Databases For European Science

Thanks To FELICS

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=42782

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory's (EMBL) European

Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), the Swiss Institute for

Bioinformatics (SIB), the University of Cologne, Germany, and the

European Patent Office launch FELICS (Free European Life-science

Information and Computational Services). The new project coordinated

by the EBI will give researchers unrestricted access to some of the

world's most important biological databases. The Commission of the

European Union has awarded 16.7 million Euro under the Research

Infrastructures action of the sixth Framework Programme (FP6) for the

project to develop, enhance and interlink many of the most important

data resources in Europe and widen their accessibility to the

scientific community worldwide. This is the largest ever European

award for computational infrastructures needed to support biological

research.

The EBI is Europe's largest curator and disseminator of biological

information, and has played a leading role in ensuring that

information from genomes, for example, is provided to scientists and

the public. Its predecessor, the EMBL Data Library, launched the

world's first universal public database of DNA sequences in the early

1980s. FELICS encompasses many of the EBI's familiar databases, but

will also feature some crucial new activities. Support for BRENDA,

the University of Cologne's enzyme database, will release it from its

current licensing constraints and provide unrestricted access to its

data. FELICS will also offer specific support for the extraction of

information from patent literature in collaboration with the European

Patent Office, who will also collaborate closely on CheBI, a database

of chemical entities of biological interest, which will receive a

substantial boost as part of the project.

" Bioinformatics now pervades biology, " says Graham Cameron, Associate

Director of the EBI and coordinator of FELICS. " Bioinformatics

experts no longer sit between biologist and database. Researchers

expect to directly access the databases and do real work. FELICS

gives scientists the electronic right to roam the biological

knowledge space. User-friendly software, developed within FELICS and

other Commission-funded projects, will facilitate navigation of that

space. "

Biomolecular databases are a crucial scientific infrastructure. The

EBI site currently receives around 2 million hits every day, and even

the most conservative estimates suggest a rise to ten million during

the next five years. The need for centralized public information

resources to provide global services for basic and applied

biomolecular and biomedical research can only increase.

" With other support from the EU and the EMBL Member States, the EBI

coordinates several FP6 networks of excellence between leading

European institutes in bioinformatics and is involved in many others.

These connections will ensure that the benefits of FELICS spread far

beyond the four partners involved in the project, " Cameron says.